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So wait … was that whole storyline from the Halloween episode about everyone in town receiving surveillance videos of their homes just a part of the Halloween episode? There was absolutely no mention of the tapes on this week’s episode. And Cheryl and Toni had the week off too. And, as has been the case with pretty much the entire series, Archie’s storyline is the least interesting of the bunch. We’ve already seen him go street vigilante once when he was the Red Hood; now he’s serving up more street justice with a black hood. Probably not the best means of disguise considering. And if everyone in town knows that Dodger is shaking down store owners and turning Riverdale into a drug den, why isn’t Sheriff Jones doing something about it? Telling Archie to make nice with the merchants filing bogus complaints against his gym/youth center on Dodger’s orders isn’t going to fix the problem, and will only land Archie in hot water … especially if we almost certainly discover that Dodger is under the employ of Hiram Lodge because, why not? Archie was at least more interesting while he was battling Hiram, so perhaps this is what the clashes with Dodger will eventually lead to.
Meanwhile, Jughead is still not meshing well with his classmates at Stonewall Prep even after his ‘buried alive’ ordeal, and apparently Moose is just fine at basic training. But Jughead really needs to but the smarmy Bret in his place. Credit to actor Sean Depner for making Bret so repugnant, but the sooner he’s gone, the better. I want to hit him in the face with a stapler myself. But how cute is it that Juggie is a fan of the Baxter Brothers mystery books (a not so subtle take on the Hardy Boys)? And what a coincidence that his writing professor is the current ghost writer of the series. And what are the chances that after writing four whole books, the publisher is ready to retire him and hire a new ghost writer! But seriously, Bret wants that gig? Okay, only because he now knows Jughead is a fan and is the best suited for the job, so just another Bret obstacle in Juggie’s path. And what about the discovery that his grandfather attended Stonewall? But what is FP hiding from his son about his father Forsythe, who didn’t even make it through a semester at Stonewall, even though his writing skills were exemplary? Will the elder Jones eventually make an appearance?
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Veronica finds herself between a rock and a hard place this week as her parents go to war … well, Hiram launches an attack on his family. Ronnie is determined to help her mother get out of jail with the help of Mary Andrews and Hiram is going to use every dirty trick in the book to keep her there while extricating himself putting Pop Tate in the thick of it. But Ronnie is willing to admit to certain things to keep Pop out of her family drama because everything she did leads back to Hiram. But the case against Hermione attempting to have Hiram killed takes a nasty turn when a document is produced showing Hermione’s name on the lease of a cabin that she’d claimed to have never visited (it’s where she actually killed the guy she hired to kill Hiram). The lease was forged and Hermione’s only option was to change her plea to guilty and hope for a pardon. Good thing the Lodges have a history with the governor, and a little more blackmail coercion helps Ronnie’s plan move forward. But once the pardon is granted, she’s visited by a woman who tells Veronica she had more dirt on her mother than she can imagine. And she’s not just working with Hiram, she’s his daughter Hermosa. Yes, Veronica now has a half-sister. And Hiram is a free man. Uh oh.
It’s nice to see Betty and Kevin as besties again. After Charles suggested Betty would be a good candidate for a Junior FBI program, she talks Kevin into joining the class with her. He’s game because Charles is hot. But Betty finds herself a natural at identifying serial killers just by looking at a picture and then comes to the conclusion that she’s so good at it because … she is one. At least potentially because she has the serial killer gene. Surprise, so does Charles … at least he claims to, saying that’s why he joined the FBI to help suppress those urges. And he thinks that rather than quit the program, Betty should stay to keep her on an even keel as well. But Betty is haunted by dreams of her cat Caramel. She’d already had an encounter with ‘herself’ (actually Polly) in which she was told she drowned Caramel. But in her latest dream, she killed Caramel with a rock because her father directed her to do so (Caramel had been hit by a car and was suffering but a rock to the head is not the most humane way to help). So because serial killers have a penchant for torturing and killing animals in their youth, this one incident convinces Betty that she’s going down that path. Kevin does manage to talk her down a bit, but then she raises a new question with him — what does she know about Charles? She never sees him outside of the class and when he has dinner at Pop’s. What’s he doing with the rest of his day? And why is he still in Riverdale now that The Farm is no more? He claims to be helping the sheriff with some cases but he never seems to actually be with the sheriff and there are no FBI-worthy cases currently open in Riverdale. If anyone can get to the bottom of this mystery, then special agent Betty Cooper can.
What did you think of this episode? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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